29 October

Where are the Trevants?

Dresden is probably more famous for what it is now than what it was. The beautiful old city centre was obliterated in 1945 by one of the most intensive fire bombings of the war. Last time we were here, 2000, the city was still rebuilding, more than 50 years after its destruction. Even then, it was spectacular! We are looking forward to a possible turn visit tomorrow, because the rebuilding of the centre of the city, as it was pre-war, is now complete. This includes the rebuilding, from scratch, of the 12th Century Cathedral!

Since our first visit to the old East Germany, in 1987, before the Wall came down, many things have changed. The roads are now up to Autobahn standard, the cities and towns have all been re-built. The cheap, mass-produced Trevants and Lada cars of the Communist era, have all disappeared - except for one lone relic we saw puttering over a motorway bridge as we, and thousands of cars and trucks, thundered on below. As campervanners, we know the shame of having everything on wheels – even Smart cars, pass us, so we felt a certain degree of sympathy for that lone Lada .

Today, a casual observer would probably notice nothing to identify the old East and West divide. The differences are still there, though. English is rarely spoken in the East, particularly by anybody over 30. We suspect that Russian would still be the predominant second language of older citizens of the former East Germany – and that may not be a bad thing. The new 'Russian invasion' seems to be tourism. The 'Ruskies' are everywhere. Much like the Japanese, they seem to prefer organised tours. You run into masses of them in many of the popular tourist venues. Dresden, today, was full of them. Their attitude smacks of superiority, at least in their eyes. Are they the new 'Ugly Americans' of Europe?

In some ways, the incorporation of the old “Iron Curtain” countries into the European Union is a little sad. The 'Big Mac' sameness of the world has quickly pervaded cultures that, to some extent, had been frozen in the 1930's. Horse-drawn ploughs and carts were common in eastern Europe when we last visited. Villages in Romania and Bulgaria had just got electricity.

We would never begrudge the good citizens of the 'east' their improved lifestyles, but..... does everything have to look like 'Small-town USA'?

There are exceptions though! Meissen for example. About 30 kms from Dresden, it escaped the attention of Allied bombers. The town, its cathedral and castle stand today, much as they did in the 16th century. Yes, there is a Maccas and all the other 'sameness stuff', but they all seem to exist in a far better balance than many other places. We hope there are still many 'Meissens” left!

28 October

Ludwig the Leaper


Following in the footsteps of Napoleon and Hitler, we are moving ever eastward. Our target, however, is not Moscow. Not this time. We saw what happened to Napoleon and Hitler! No, we are heading to Dresden and then into the old eastern blo. At this stage, we aren't sure how far east we'll go, but given that we drove all the way East to the Europe-Asia frontier (the Bosporus) last trip, and were robbed along the way, we might just head for Prague and Budapest?
Although we have a broad plan, deciding day to day what to do is what travelling like this is all about. If the weather turns bad or other things attract us, we can drift off wherever we like. As an example, we once drove more that 700 klms across France to Switzerland, just because we hadn't seen snow and it WAS December!

Our progress to date has been more like the celebrated retreat (s) from Moscow, rather than an advance. Getting a van set up to a good travelling mode takes longer than it would at home. Finding the German equivalent of Bunnings to buy bits and pieces to make life more comfortable, has taken us the better part of a couple of days, with only a couple of hundred kilometers 'under the belt'.. Along the way, we have managed to see Cologne Cathedral. Truly awe inspiring! We could see it well out from the city on our way in, but when we got off the train in the centre of town, it was looming above us. We wandered about for an hour or so, stunned!

Leaving Cologne and pressing further East, the weather turned foul, but the scenery was still visible through the rain and haze. Rolling hills, with small towns nestled into valleys, slipped by us for hours. Germany, particularly the old East Germany, has a lot of open space and forest.

Autumn is in full 'swing' in eastern Germany. The golds and russets, mixed with the green of the pines paint the hills. Maybe the mist is part of it all? - “Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness... etc”.

On our way to visit Wartburg Castle, the forest floor was covered in a carpet of autumn colour. It's something we miss in Brisbane... autumn. Wartburg was famous for two reasons:firstly it was built by Ludwig der Springer (the Leaper) and secondly, Martin Luther hid here for a year or so once he had upset the Pope with his 94 Treaties.

Our main reason for paying the extra to take the guided tour of Wartburg, was that we desperately wanted to know why Ludwig was known as 'the Leaper'. You can probably guess how disappointed we were when we had to take the German language tour! In absolute frustration, we squeezed the answer out of the guide (who thought he spoke poor English, but it sounded perfect to us) And the answer is? Ludwig was imprisoned at one stage of his life and escaped by jumping 30m into the moat of the prison. Knowing that made enduring an hour of incomprehensible German description of the wonders of Wartburg well worth the entrance fee! The answers to our lesser questions as to why there was a Frederick the Bearded and a Nicholas the Nosey, not to mention Albrecht the Decadent, suddenly became irrelevant.

Tonight we are parked in another Services, with a few companionable truckies. We had to take a “small” road into Erfurt to try to find a supermarket to stock up on the necessaries. There's always something that you need that's not in the van – especially when free-camping is on your agenda. Today we picked up a hose and some actual glass, wine glasses – so tired of the plastic stuff we bought in Scandinavia! Alle ist gut! Eastern Germany has certainly come a long way since we were last here in 2000 – not to mention when we were here in 1987!!!

25 October

'On the Road Again'

We taught our grand-daughter Abby to sing “On the Road Again” (Willy Nelson) when she went on a long road trip with Ben & Jen a couple of months back. Paul also drilled her on what to say when bored in the car. “Are we there yet?”

Now it's our turn to hit the road.

Back in the van mode of travel after a gap of 7 years, we have slotted back into the routine like the pros we probably are by now. (By the end of trip we will have spent almost 12 months travelling this way) Despite our concerns about adjusting to motorway noise, we had a reasonable sleep last night. The usual hassles about van travel, water, gas and dumping waste are still there to challenge us, but we are a lot more experienced and able to deal with them than we were over 20 years ago when we first travelled in Europe this way. Our van is 'ok' and only ok. It's old but, so far, everything works.

Given the number of people in Europe, and the number of people travelling at any given time, accessing simple things like fresh water and places to dump rubbish and waste, can be a problem. At home, the nearest toilet 'dump site' is only a stroll away in the bush with a shovel and the nearest fresh water is at the local service station. Here, doing both will probably cost you money and require a Google search to find!. Not a lot of money, granted, but it rubs a bit to pay for things that we consider to be free. Paying for the use of a toilet is something that is not new in our European travels, but still irks. The female member of our party delights in paying these “tolls” in the smallest denomination coins she can find as “payback” for the fact that she has to pay to use a toilet!

It was Saturday today, so the trucks weren't on the motorways (must be an overtime thing?). For this in our slow old van, this was a blessing. After a hectic day yesterday in traffic jams and narrow medieval streets, it was fairly easy going today. We visited two great little cities on the Dutch-German border. Maastricht and Aachen. Both were great. Easy to access and full of interesting old cobbled streets, neither of which we had to actually drive through, as we often do when lost!

One of the things most people tire of in visiting European cities is Cathedrals. Yes, after months of one “Dom Kirke” after another, one can be just about 'kirked-out'. But this early on we were happy to join the Autumn throng of tourists wandering open-mouthed around the medieval cathedrals and city squares of Maastricht and Aachen.
Tonight is a relatively new vanning experience for us. We are using what the French call an Aire de Service. It's something between a camping ground and a highway rest stop. You can pay up to around $50 to camp in a camping ground. A motorway stop costs nothing, but it generally has no power, no water, showers or other conveniences. The Aire can be anything from simply a relatively safe site, to a full-on camp site with power, water toilets etc. And they cost from nothing to about $30. This one is in Koln (Cologne to us). It is packed with German Campervanners! They are well into all the tricks of the trade. There must be 50 vans packed into this small site beside the Rhine. We were late in this afternoon, so we don't have a powered spot or a view of the river. Never mind, we have 24 hours of parking for $15 and a safe location, close to the centre of the city. We went for a walk around the site this afternoon and saw an amazing variety of campers, from basic ones like ours to huge RV's. Bottom line is, we're in the same place. And the question must be asked - How's the serenity?

20 October - 24 October

Amsterdam Again!


The Netherlands has a population a little less than Australia's, crammed into an area less than the size of Tasmania. It is a wealthy and enterprising nation. Just try to get a bargain out of a Dutchman!

Most Australians would be highly envious of the infrastructure that The Netherlands possesses. Fantastic road networks that look like lace-work on a map, modern rail and bus networks within and between cities, landscape dotted with glasshouses, cows, windmills and picturesque houses in picturesque settings – it's all almost postcard perfect. It's a shame that Amsterdam doesn't measure up. Maybe we've just been unlucky, but they always seem to be digging up the roads, there's always someone doing a drug deal just off the road or laneway you're on and they don't seem to have the “Don't litter” mentality that has become part of our life.

Amsterdam has the worst aspects of many big cities in abundance. Dirty, crowded and increasingly charmless, as modern developments crowd out and overshadow the once attractive parts of the city. Liberal drug laws have attracted 'kids' from around the world. The city is probably still relatively safe. However, it just doesn't feel so?

For such a crowded nation, The Netherlands does have a fair amount of farmland. Increasingly though, it is rows of factories, rather than glasshouses that line the highways.

We dropped off our leased car on the 22nd, after leaving our luggage at our B&B. WELL, the Barangay B&B is a story in itself. It is run by two guys (look at the name of the place) and their “houseboy” -Ron- from the Philippines - who welcomed us beautifully. For those of you who know “The Birdcage” movie with Robin Williams, think Agador. The place was wonderful, very well set up, with everything a boy could possibly want. (See our Facebook pics)
After a couple of days in and around Amsterdam, we took ourselves off towards Aachen in our newly- acquired campervan. Our 'escape' from Amsterdam was less that graceful. 'Nav-girl' (our sat-nav) has great difficulty with inner-city streets and as a result of her incompetence, we saw far more of central Amsterdam than we had planned. After a cruise up the Damrak, and a number of lesser side streets, we sailed past Centraal Station, the Mint Tower and Singel Canal. None of this was planned, but what the...!

Next it was off into 'Motorway World' Dutch style. Disaster! Five hours on the road for much less than 200kms. Hours in traffic snags that stretched for 10s of klms. To solve the problem, the ever-enterprising Dutch are building more and more motorways, up and over, under and beside existing clogged arteries. As quickly as they are built, they become parking lots. Is this the right solution?

Tonight is our first night 'free-camping'. Last night we stayed at Camping Zeeburg in Amsterdam. A reasonable site, but located in an extremely ugly part of the city. Our view tonight is one that is familiar to us after two previous campervan trips to Europe. Motorways and Trucks. We will get used to the noise after a few nights, but the roar outside now doesn't bode well for a good night's sleep!